Have you all been smelling that holiday spirit that has been fragrant in the air? For weeks now, people everywhere have been preparing for the holidays: Hanukkah has been beautifully celebrated, people endured Black Friday to find the best deals on gifts for their friends and family, and Christmas festivities are being planned. Christmas is a gorgeous holiday for many reasons: the concept of giving gifts to the people you love and care for, making time for said people, and the dazzling holiday decorations that puts everyone in a cheerful mood. Without these amazing aspects, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas!

With this in mind, it’s important to think about the cost of the holiday season. Christmas gifts aren’t cheap, preparing dinners for large groups is costly, and traveling for the holidays costs money as well. So, on top of all other expenses, why should we spend tons of cash on Christmas decorations? In addition, why should we do the environment damage by buying decorations that have packaging that will inevitably end up in landfills? We have a great solution for this: do-it-yourself decorations made out of our foam insulation products! They are safe for kids, easy to cut, and an easy canvas for all of your creative needs. Plus, crafting your own holiday décor is a great activity to do with kids! Here are a few fun Christmas decorations that you can make with foam insulation:

Christmas Trees

If you’ve recently renovated your home with the Advantage ICF insulation system, and have a few extra ICF blocks lying around, we have a fun and easy DIY Christmas project for you. Making an ICF foam Christmas tree is simple: first, you will need to have five blocks available to create the tree. Treat it like it’s a pyramid, and stack the blocks from longest to shortest (you may need to cut them to shape them accordingly). From there, you can adorn your tree with whatever a typical Christmas tree would have: garland, lights, a star on top, and whatever else you feel like adding! Bonus: unlike a real Christmas tree, you won’t have any loose tree needles on the floor to clean up!

Snowflakes

Using our Handi-Pac foam insulation, creating fun snowflakes is simple. Just take a piece of the foam, draw the outline and design of the snowflake on there, cut it out, and dress it up however you wish. You can add some paint, glitter, or anything else your heart desires! These little snowflakes are versatile enough to hang anywhere in your home, and can even be used to adorn the previously mentioned foam Christmas tree!

Wreaths

Want to make some cool foam wreaths to add to your décor? All it takes is some more Handi-Pac insulation. Similarly to the foam snowflakes, you simply just outline the wreath in the foam, cut it out, and make it super festive with paint, glitter, or whatever else you may want to add.

Ornaments

Creating your own ornaments is an extremely fun activity, but these ornaments often break due to the fragile materials used. To avoid this, try using Handi-Pac foam insulation instead! You can create both ball and shaped ornaments easily with the foam; just outline and cut it however you desire, and add some personality with paint, glitter, sharpies, or whatever else you feel your ornament needs. In the end, you’ll have a fun, stylish ornament that properly reflects your creativity, without breaking once it’s on the tree!

Fireplace

Is your home without a fireplace and chimney for Santa to deliver presents through on Christmas Eve? No need to worry, because you can make one! While this project requires a bit more work than the previous ones, the result is much more intricate and worthwhile. There are many ways to create this fireplace, but we like this version by The Sorry Girls best. Here’s their tutorial for building a foam faux fireplace!. If you don’t like their version, feel free to Google another way, or find one on Pinterest that works better for you!